


bomb-ass pussy

by hupsoonheng



Series: Nuclearstuck [4]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Abortion, Caliginous Romance | Kismesis, Flushed Romance | Matesprits, Frottage, M/M, Mild Gore, Oral Sex, Pale Romance | Moirallegiance, Phone Sex, Pregnancy, Teasing, Xeno, Xenobiology
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-29
Updated: 2012-09-17
Packaged: 2017-11-13 03:15:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 10,925
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/498825
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hupsoonheng/pseuds/hupsoonheng
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the events of Young Tender Hearts Beat Fast, Dave and Gamzee just want to get back to normal. (Whatever "normal" means.)</p><p>Of course, that's pretty much asking the impossible when it comes to these two.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> okay so hey! sit back, relax, and enjoy some smut to start us off, with only a smattering of worrying plot shit. also, if you're on tumblr, consider following the [nuclearstuck blog](http://nuclearstuck.tumblr.com/)!

After the scare you give Dave in the bathroom, you don’t actually pass the fuck out again. You still feel like shit, no doubt. And you’re pretty sure you know what’s wrong with you, but you don’t even wanna think about that shit, like thinking about it will make it true. 

Dave puts in the paperwork, and unfortunately the fuck for you, it goes through. A Bureau officer comes by with your new piece of jewelry, sighs and says that “next time” you need to wait in the district for someone from the Bureau to pick you up in a truck or some shit, and straps the ankle bracelet around your leg. You already fucking hate it. Then she lectures you about the medication, droning on about shit you already heard when you were eight sweeps old and having to be on this shit while living on in the district. 

You do realize, honestly, that Dave is sacrificing a lot to do this for you. He still works the same job as a regular DJ at a club in downtown Manhattan, which pays alright, but now he’s got to support the both of you, especially considering you’re not allowed to leave the building. (You can at least go into the hall, and into the lobby to do shit like get the mail.) You’re grateful, really. He even stocked the fridge with Tropical Fantasy before he up and rescued you, despite not knowing if he’d actually get you back. 

Except for how he puts these fuckin’ post-it notes everywhere. And they all say the same goddamn thing.

  
B O M B - A S S - P U S S Y

You find them everywhere the first days you live with him. They’re on the fridge, on the bathroom mirror, on the toilet tank, on the TV screen, even on the ceiling over the bed when you wake up. He fucking knows how much you hate that word, and you snatch each one from wherever you find them to crumple them into his clean socks. After that little annoyance he seems to decide it’s not worth it, and you’re pretty fucking happy to return to more usual ways of irritating the shit out of him, leaving all sorts of marks on him that he’s given up on hiding at work. 

By the end of the week you find a single red post-it note, and you don’t notice it until you’ve already opened the bottle of soda it’s been slapped on.

  
youve got a  
B O M B ♠ A S S ♠ P U S S Y

You flip your shit so thoroughly you accidentally throw the open bottle, and it pours out as it falls in an impressive arc, mostly the fuck over you. You sort of want to rip the whole kitchen apart, somewhere in deep in the back of your head, but the medication you took last night is a gentle buzz of calm that makes you just sort of stand there for a while, watching the soda on the floor lose its carbonation. 

In the end you take your soda-sticky ass, park it on Dave’s cheap white couch, and get blazed as shit. There was some bullshit you read on the internet the first time you did this about not partaking while adjusting to the government pills, as most trolls called them, but shit, you’re eleven sweeps old, you do what you fucking want. (Mostly.) You’re so pleased by your very grown-up decisions that you go digging through Dave’s pantry and find an ancient box of Betty Crocker brownie mix in the back of it. You’re pretty sure this shit will last into a nuclear winter, regardless of what the numbers on the box say. You bake it up nice, and come to the conclusion that you should tell Dave that you put the rest of his weed in the brownies without actually doing so, because you’d like to have some for regular, non-magical use later. 

When Dave comes home you’re freshly showered and waiting on the stained couch for him, the goofiest, most harmless grin you can muster on your face, and he flips his shit much more thoroughly than you did. He calls you all sorts of names, says he ought to give you back to the Grand Highfuck, demands to know what the hell made you think this was an okay thing to do. 

“I ain’t be likin’ that word you put on my goddamn soda, makin’ me waste all that good shit,” is all you say, lounging back. “A motherfucker gets tired of jokes.” 

“A motherfucker is gonna get his ass kicked,” Dave snarls, taking a running start to leap on you. His knees land to either side of your hips and when his fist darts in toward your face you let it glance off your jaw before you snatch both his wrists out of the air, holding them aloft. His struggling means nothing against your grip, and you yank him down suddenly, letting go of his wrists just so you can get a good hold of his face. 

You fucking missed kissing him when you were stuck in the district. You missed his warm, full human lips, his fun weird mix of blunt and sharpish teeth, the way he has to try extra hard to split your skin with them. You missed how fucking small he is in comparison to you, to most trolls, little pasty hands running up under your shirt to rub up on the scarred skin over the little calcified masses on your ribs that used to connect to your middle grub legs. They’re not particularly sensitive, but you guess they’re as interesting to him as much as his nipples perpetually fascinate your ass. And things always feel a little more lit up when you’re high, even if it’s just the tail end coming down. 

His shirt comes off because it’s easy to do, and you haul him forward and down by the waist and shoulders so you can put your mouth to one of those brown nubs. Unlike your grub scars, his nipples seem to be fucking charged with erogenous nerves or whatever the fuck; Dave undulates against you, bites back a moaning yelp when you bite around it. When you draw back there’s little pinpricks of his bright red blood, and you lick them away, grinning up at him. 

“You pick the worst spots, you know that?” he pants, glaring down at you in turn. “I fuckin’ hate you so much, all you do is ruin my furniture and bite me. You’re like a shitty dog. You’re like a shitty, ugly, unwanted dog that nobody wants. I shouldn’t even take you to the pound, because nobody will pick you and you’ll just get euthanized, and nobody will be sad. I can’t even take you out back because then it’ll be up to me to dispose of the body.” 

You let him talk up to that point, and then make your own point by rolling your hips up against his ass. “I’m just gonna have to let you loose in the woo-OODS whoa! Jesus, Gam, you can’t give a lady proper warning?” he asks, laying his body flat against yours. “I know you fuckin’ missed me, but for fuck’s sake.” Dave pushes his ass back against where your bulge is making an honest effort to bust the fuck out of your pants. “I don’t think you were ever so fucking horny all the time when you were up in Kingsbridge.” 

“That’s cuz I didn’t have your ass around to up and get me off whenever I wanted,” you tell him as you curl your thumbs into his side belt loops and tug down. You know the truth of it, but that’s honestly almost as good an answer. “Get these shits off or I’m gonna tear them off your motherfuckin’ ass and you’ll be minus a pair of goddamn pants.” 

“I like these pants,” he growls, and he sits up just enough that you have room to attack his fly before he can even get to it himself. “Goddamn, Gamzee, you’re fuckin’ thirsty for it! Haven’t you had enough when it’s every fucking night we go at it?” 

“Nope.” You give his ass a slap, and point off the couch. “I said get these motherfuckers off, Dave, you think I’m fuckin’ kidding around I’ll fuck you up so bad they won’t fuckin’ recognize the body when they find it.” 

“Hot,” is all Dave has to say as he rises, and you get up too, standing behind him. As he starts to slide his pants and briefs down together your hand skates down the front of his body, wraps around his cock and envelops it. It’s only half hard, but you take care of that quick, your other arm pulling his waist flush to your body as you drop your knees and bite the flesh just below his ears. That doesn’t break any of his stupid rules; you know the mark will only just peek out from under his headphones. He groans, body going weak, and for a few seconds you’re the only thing holding him upright. 

He gets over it, though, and once he’s kicked off his shoes, pants, every other fucking thing he’s got on below the waist, he turns around and yanks at your shirt, though he’s not tall enough to pull it off you by himself. Your horns scrape the ceiling as you pull it off for him, and in your moment of vulnerability he bites and sucks at whatever purple-tinged flesh he can find. He still can’t fucking break the skin but he’s literally hotter than probably any troll alive, and the warmth against your cool skin makes you shudder. 

“I can’t believe you fuckin’ wore these all day without laughing yourself sick,” Dave chuckles as he pushes the waistband of your pants down. You’re wearing his stupid Spongebob Squarepants pajama bottoms that look like capris on you, which you fished out of his basket of clean laundry while high and after showering. At the time they’d just looked kinda goofy and really fun, which you liked, but now you’re kind of done with them as a little bit of a, as Dave puts it, bonerkill. 

You step out of them and send them sailing out of the room so you don’t even end up catching a glance at them. Fuck these pants, and fuck Spongebob motherfucking Squarepants. He’s got no place right now in the setup you’ve got going, which involves hoisting up a very naked Dave by the ass so you can kiss him again, savage and needy with Dave’s legs around your waist. Lubrication tinted purple runs down your inner thighs, and your bulge plays across Dave’s taint, seeking the heat of his ass. 

As a young troll you never really saw what the big deal was about asses, especially with no actual concupiscent experience. For trolls, it was just a waste disposal area, with all the fun stuff in the front, but now that you’ve been with Dave, you’ve come to appreciate just how fucking _stellar_ an ass can be, especially considering that’s exactly the word you’d use to describe Dave’s. 

Two steps back and you strip back onto the couch, legs splaying with Dave straddling your lap. For a moment you pause, looking at the already-stained white couch, but Dave jerks your face back to face his. “It’s already fucking ruined, you shitty dog,” he whispers. “Might as well _really_ fucking ruin it.” 

Your bulge twines its way around Dave’s balls and up around his purple-tinted cock, which you’ve always enjoyed a whole fucking lot. He’s told you before that it’s not a choice he makes, that a lot of humans with his particular genital configuration and skin tone get that way when they’re aroused enough, but you still like to pretend he’s doing it for your benefit. He fucking melts against you, your bulge making everything between you slick, and he thrusts into that slickness. You can feel him shaking, how slow he’s trying to take it to make it last. 

“Jesus fucking Christ, I’ve been fucking dying without this,” he says, throwing his head back for a moment as he adjusts his grip on your shoulders. 

“I ain’t mean to make you dead, motherfucker, that would make me the worst kismesis in the known universe,” you chuckle, squeezing around him, which makes him practically squeak. “Kismatesprit. What the fuck ever.” 

“Ah, you admit it, despite all those months of goddamn strife and trolligion,” Dave crows, voice stuttering a little when the tip of your bulge plays at the opening of his cock. “You stop your shit, Gamzee Makara, get the fuck outta there.” 

“Don’t know what the fuck you mean,” you say, playing innocent, and he doesn’t have any clever fucking quips when the tip of your bulge shifts down to tickle just under the head of his dick, instead. With your bulge doing all the work around his cock, your hands are free to knead his ass. “I think it was me dying without _this_ ,” you remark as you give his ass a particularly appreciative squeeze. “I ain’t never come to appreciate an ass so much until I met you, Dave Strider.” 

“Someone’s feeling affectionate,” he says with a smirk. 

“Just for your ass,” you say, and with that you scratch lightly across one cheek, blood beading up in five neat red lines. “Anyway, how is it you’re missing ‘all of this’ when I heard you been fuckin’ Tavros this whole time I was unavailable?” You flick him in the face, opening up a cut just under his right eye, which totally violates his rules for no visible marks. You give not one single fuck. To his credit, he barely flinches. 

“Ah, you heard about that, huh?” He actually looks like he got caught at something, the little shit, and you give him a vicious grin. 

“Don’t even worry your precious banana head ‘bout it, shithead,” you say. With all the chattiness going on his hips have slowed way down, and you decide to fix that by rolling your own hips, bulge squeezing and coiling around his cock faster than he was thrusting before, and that definitely shuts Dave up, kicks him back into fucking your bulge. “’Sides, he’s a sexy motherfucker,” you grunt. “Invite his ass over sometime.” 

Dave doesn’t answer that, and you choose to interpret that as his being too turned on to talk. Honestly, it’s not hard to believe—there’s a high red flush in his pale face and chest, eyelids fluttering over his matching eyes. He presses back close to your body, arms thrown around your shoulders and fingers pulling at the back of your hair. You sink your claws into his back, just deep enough to hurt without maiming, as he fucks the warm wet place between your stomachs. For a moment you hesitate, and then you whisper something in his ear that makes him go wide-eyed; you can feel it in the movement of his eyelashes against your neck, and in the way his breath pauses. 

He comes a scant few seconds later, groaning as he rides out his orgasm. You think you hear your own words thrown back at you, more or less. 

Dave only takes a few more moments to recover, before he’s climbing off and kneeling between your legs. Your nook feels like it’s fucking aching from inattention, and you groan so loud the neighbors probably hear it when he presses his lips to your seed flap, hot tongue pushing inside. He bites at the outer edges, and where another troll’s teeth perforating that skin might not be so welcome, his barely-adequate canines give the perfect sting. 

His thumbs spread you open wider, and his upper teeth scrape the base of your bulge as his tongue delves deeper inside you, curling and flicking. Your legs shake and you hook one over his shoulder as you grab at his hair, and he takes it all in stride, diligent in his work to get you off. You were already close when he came, and against this you don’t last long; you come in a torrent over his face, down his body, but he holds steady until you finish, hips bucking against his mouth and probably tearing some of his hair out. 

“Well.” Dave brings his hands to shoulder level and flicks them outward, droplets of your genetic material flung in either direction. “So the fuck much for my couch.” You just laugh at him and tell him you put the rest of his weed in the brownies you made.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ride's over, kids, you are fucking IN for it next chapter


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> shits poppin off

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ahhh sorry for how short this one is, guys, but i kind of wanted to put this one out there quick and it's something that's been in the works for a while now
> 
> i hope i don't lose anybody here!!

Gamzee is running you ragged. You’ve lived alone for so long, and now Gamzee isn’t legally allowed to leave the building until the end of the month—and even then you’ve got to play escort to him if he wants to go outside for a month after that. 

When he lived in the Bronx you liked getting laid every time you saw him, but holy shit, he wants to fuck literally every night. It’s been two weeks now and this past week you’ve turned him down four days out of seven. He calls you a whole lot of names pertaining to your “weak human muppet body” that honestly amuse more than they insult, especially when he’s pouting like that, but he respects your wishes enough to leave you alone. Last night, though, he just seemed so fucking _miserable_ about it that you sat behind him, face pressed to his broad back as you jerked him off. 

Once your arm had been put in the sling, you took it upon yourself to go to Gamzee’s old apartment, let yourself in with the copy of his key you had, and collect what you could of his belongings. (Thankfully his rent wasn’t due just yet, so the landlord hadn’t come to evict yet.) Nobody would help you with it, counseling against doing it—telling you to let him go, get over him—so you were limited to what you could put in a backpack and a pair of Trader Joe’s shopping bags. His shitty laptop with the broken hinge, his second and only other pair of fuck-off giant shoes, his very modest collection of Dunnies; a greater percentage of his wardrobe than you’d thought you’d be able to manage. He had a lot less clothes than you knew. 

God help you, you sat there and cried into a ratty O.D.B shirt for a good twenty minutes before you could get your shit together. Not that you told anybody about it. 

So for what felt like ages, Gamzee’s possessions had sat in those bags in your closet, reminding you of his existence every time you reached in for a bottle of cleaner or something. (You got less and less inclined to cleaning, until the morning you woke up to Tavros scrubbing out your toilet, and a wave of guilt and embarrassment crashed over you.) 

Nobody has come to visit yet; once all the hubbub of Gamzee’s rescue and Feferi’s appearance in your sister’s life died down, things got awkward between you and the rest of your social circle. Tavros still talks to you online, but you kind of miss his physical presence. You visit Rose; she doesn’t visit you. You made amends with John, but he doesn’t talk to you nearly as much as he used to. 

You’re still thinking about how to rebuild that friendship with the least amount of work possible when you come home from work. It’s good to have a gig with some kind of regularity after years of uncertainty and of loading your own equipment for private events, but between the late nights and Gamzee’s needs, you’re exhausted. 

So you don’t quite register what you’re looking at when you sit down at your own computer, not at first. 

 

TC: it’s not something i really wanna even think about.  
TC: something fucking growing inside me.  
TC: somethings, plural, even.  
TC: that shit ain’t right.  
AT: yEAH, tHAT WOULD BOTHER ME TOO, i GUESS,  
AT: dO YOU KNOW, wHOSE,  
TC: could have been any one of those motherfuckers. not that i give a single flying ninja fuck.  
TC: i don’t know what the fuck to do, tavbro.  
TC: i don’t want to do this.  
AT: i DON’T THINK, yOU HAVE A CHOICE, }:(  
TC: i know.  
AT: hAVE YOU TOLD KARKAT YET,  
TC: yeah. motherfucker’s all kinds of sad he can’t be here when it happens, help me through this bullshit.  
AT: wHAT ABOUT DAVE,

 

The last message from Tavros is stamped only a couple minutes ago, and that’s when you turn in your chair to see Gamzee re-entering the room, a glass of soda in his hand. For a moment you both freeze. 

“Hey, uh, Dave,” he says, sipping on his soda with a frown. “My laptop just all up and gave up the ghost, so I was borrowing your computer.” He gestures at his own machine, the screen of which is a lovely shade of blue. Apparently Gamzee just gave up at that point. “That’s alright, ain’t it?” 

“Sure,” you say, feeling for a moment like you’re speaking from five minutes in the past. “Yeah, no, what’s mine is yours. Duh.” You stand up, and go sit your numb-brained ass on the couch. Gamzee looks like he thinks this means you didn’t see his messages with Tavros, and he retakes his seat at your desk. 

A few minutes later, you pull out your phone, and send a single message. 

 

turntechGodhead [TG] began pestering terminallyCapricious [TC] -- 

TG: so when were you gonna tell me makara  
TC: wait

 

You hear the computer chair whirl around, and you meet Gamzee’s indignant gaze with your furious one. “You fucking read my messages, Dave?” 

“All I did was sit down at my own computer after working all night!” you return. “I didn’t go fucking snooping, but I saw what I saw!” The numb feeling from before vanishes, and you stalk over to the desk to tap on the screen. “So, whatever this is, you tell Karkat, and then you tell Tavros, but me? You leave me in the dark, when you fucking _live_ with me?” 

“How the fuck—you think this is easy, motherfucker?” Gamzee is apoplectic, hands gesturing so wide and fast that you have to slap one away from your face. “I been _wanting_ to tell you but this is not shit I want to be thinking about!” 

“What even _is_ this ‘shit’?” you demand, taking Gamzee firmly by the shoulders. “What, are you fucking sick? I’ll _take_ you to the hospital where Aradia works.” You glance at the screen, take in the words again. “Is it like, I don’t fucking know, troll cancer? Is that what they did to you?” 

“No!” Gamzee shrugs you off easy as pie. “The fuck, where’d you get that idea?” 

“I don’t fucking know, you said it was shit _growing_ inside—” You pause. Because you feel so fucking stupid. Your mouth has gone Sahara dry, and you lick your lips in vain. “Gamzee. Gamzee _motherfucking_ Makara.” 

“What.” He sounds sullen about it. 

“Is this some pregnancy bullshit?” 

“Some what?” Gamzee looks up at you, and you can tell he’s a hundred percent confused. 

“Is the troll cancer actually little baby trolls, is that what’s going on?” You’re not sure if you want to laugh or scream. 

“I said I don’t wanna talk about it!” Gamzee does a 180, and you’re presented with the back of the computer chair instead. 

It hits you that Tavros asked “whose,” which implies a whole lot of shit you’re not sure you can stomach. When you look at Gamzee you always see a strong fighter, even a killer probably, but right now he just looks kind of small for an eight foot tall pseudo-alien, and really sad in a pissed-off way. 

When you push the chair back around to face you, Gamzee’s bare feet drag across the floorboards. “So when’s shit popping off?” you ask, as you kneel in front of him and cross your arms over his knees. 

“Another week, probably,” he grumbles, and damn does he look sick about it. “I don’t wanna fucking do this.” 

You’re so out of your fucking depth here, though, and all you can do for the rest of the night is sit with him, take him to bed, hold him. By troll standards this is the “reddest” you two have ever been, but neither he nor especially you give a flying fuck about quadrant bullshit right now. You just wish you could do more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> stay with me guys


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> makaras domesticus

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay, whew! i hope 3000 words of chapter 3 will make up for how short the last chapter was. there's also two more nukestuck fics in the works: one is a look back on dave and john's relationship, and the other is an edit of the rp i did with mulattafury of dave's first time with a troll. speaking of which, we have [fanart](http://nuclearstuck.tumblr.com/post/30672607838/soporsensuality-nukestuck-sollux-and-dave-from) for that! and it's hot hot hooooot~ /fans self

“Because you can’t take care of yourself, is why.” Dave scrubs your back vigorously with one of those plastic washcloths from K-town; in terms of items made with only humans in mind, they’re pretty much the only fucking thing that can exfoliate troll skin decently. Not that you give any particular shits about exfoliating, but you do like the mildly raw feeling it leaves behind. 

Dave’s legs are twined around your hips, the toes of one foot curled under your left thigh to anchor it in the water as he sits behind you in his small tub. Well, it’s a pretty normal-sized tub for a human habitation, but for the pair of you together it’s a bit of a tight fit. Your right foot hangs out of the tub, because the ankle bracelet can’t be submerged in water, although you’re allowed to shower in it. He’s naked, too, but he’s flaccid, more focused on the act of washing you. 

“I took care of myself for at least a good fuckin’ ten sweeps before I met you,” you grumble, swishing the rubber ducky between your hands on the surface of the water. Dave’s trusted you to not destroy his Mr. T duck, and this is one request you can honor. You know what it’s like to get attached to stupid shit. 

“Wrong. A troll nursery worker took care of you until you pupated into a grisly kinda-human looking thing,” Dave corrects you. You glance over your shoulder in mild surprise. “That’s right, I’ve been reading up on troll shit. I know what’s up.” He pours out Mane and Tail into his palm and slaps your face away with the other hand so you’re looking forward again, and lathers up your hair. 

You stay quiet for a little while, and all Dave does is talk shit about your hair, how fucking tangled it gets and what a nuisance you are, how he’s gonna cut your hair. Then he sort of gets lost on that one, goes off on a tangent about his specific plans for your hair. “I’ma make you hot,” he says as he reaches for the emptied-out coffee can on the floor. “Well, hotter, anyway.” You just snort derisively, which sends him off on another shpiel about you calling him a liar. 

He doesn’t warn you when he dumps tepid water over your head, and while you’re spitting out the suds and trying to protect your eyes he does it again, filling from the tap. You call him all sorts of names and he just shakes your head by one horn. 

When you get out of the tub he won’t let you dry yourself off, and instead makes you stand there shivering while he dries himself off before he rubs you down with a Dora the Explorer beach towel. “Why you gotta be like this, Dave?” you mutter, muffled by the towel as you lean down for Dave to dry off your hair. “Ain’t you got no normal-ass towels?” 

“Are you opposed to imagery of a young adventurous brown girl?” Dave returns, releasing your face and snapping the towel against your chest. “I never took you for a white supremacist, Gamzee.” 

“I don’t even know what the fuck that is.”

“Of course you don’t,” Dave says as he takes a green tin out of the cabinet and starts massaging its contents into your skin. The first time he did this you found out it was for cow udders and you threw the whole thing out into the hall, but now you just don’t give a shit and let him slap it all over. 

You can understand what Dave’s trying to do. Every evening you wake up with abdominal pain from the things growing inside you, and Dave’s taken off work for a week since you told him so he can attend to you. The one time you told him you’d rather just suffer it alone so you can forget it ever happened, he got offended in ways you’re not in the mood to deal with; it wasn’t even caliginous so much as irritating. 

The worst part is that now he barely touches you except in the most platonic of ways, and goddamn you just want to slit his fucking throat and fuck the hole it makes with how sexually frustrated you are. It’s a real fucking bitch how even with these nasty things days away from making their appearance, your fertile cycle still isn’t over and you just want to fuck everything that moves. You’d be loving it under other circumstances, actually, but oh fuck here comes Dave with that tea shit again. 

“Don’t you give me that stank eye,” Dave says as he sets it down for you. “You don’t know what that shit cost me at Fairway.” He settles into the couch next to you, leaning his bare back against your side; he’s wearing nothing but pajama pants, which seems unfair. (They’re not even ridiculous ones.) You’re watching Hook because you miss Tavros, and this is his favorite movie of all time, pretty much. You remember when he tried to watch the animated version from the fifties, and halfway through he just stopped the DVD, ejected it, and broke it before sliding the two neat halves back into their Netflix sleeve. 

You flop your arm around Dave so he’s not leaning on it, and glance at his phone’s screen. Well, more than glance. 

 

EB: haha it’s just weird, is all.   
TG: whats weird  
EB: that he’s like... there, with you, like all the time now. like before all this stupid crap with the district went down, i thought he was just some prolonged friends with benefits thing, dubious on the benefits if he was beating the shit out of you.   
TG: youre a dick egbert you know that  
EB: ha ha, yeah.   
EB: ugh karkat is going out of his mind though and he won’t tell me why, he keeps trying to find things to sell for airfare back to new york.   
EB: i caught him trying to sell my old magic trunk from when i was a kid because he thought it being vintage made it worth something! ugh, i was so pissed.   
EB: do you know anything about it? 

 

Dave glances up at you. “Do you fucking mind?” he says, arching his brows. “This is a A-B conversation, so C yo way out, thank you.” Of course, you do no such fucking thing. 

 

TG: not a fuckin clue johnny  
EB: oh my god don’t.  
TG: this is all so fucking far from the point i wanted to make though  
TG: i mean look i bring back my long lost trollfriend and half of you fuck off into the negaverse  
TG: like what the fuck  
TG: how am i supposed to take that  
TG: i want my friend john back  
TG: i dont need some big fuckin emotional reunion i just want you to message me with dumb shit in the middle of the day again  
TG: i want you to bombard me with youtube links i will never click because im always listening to something far superior  
EB: wow, rude.  
TG: i want to hear your daily tales of what dumbass shit karkat has done now  
TG: i want to be able to do the same with gamzee because holy shit it’s like your daily dose of dumbassery over here  
TG: i want to send you my latest projects for you to put piano over because you’re fucking weird like that  
TG: and also talented  
TG: see what you made me do all complimenting you and shit  
TG: jesus christ egbert  
TG: im going soft for you  
EB: eheheh. as if you weren’t always.   
TG: you shut your shit sir  
EB: okay i do admit, i definitely miss you!   
EB: it’s just been... weird... especially with the way karkat’s been acting.   
EB: uh.  
EB: can i call you, actually?  
TG: what like right now  
EB: if that’s okay?  
TG: we live in the modern age egbert get with the times  
TG: or stay with them rather  
TG: whats wrong with pesterchum mobile huh  
EB: i kind of miss your voice? is that weird?   
TG: w e i r do  
TG: shit  
TG: imagine another space between d and o  
EB: i’m not the weirdo here, dave.   
TG: okay fine  
TG: fine lets do this shit up right  
TG: gamzees watching hook but i think he’s stoned to shit and back so i dont think hell care  
TG: ring-a-ling motherfucker call me up

 

You’re not actually stoned, but you accidentally double-medicated last night and you’ve been feeling weird and buzzy all day, so you’d rather just let Dave believe you’re blazed. His ringtone for John is set to that stupid Living in the Sunshine song and it plays right over one of Rufio’s better insults against Robin Williams. You sort of want to smack the phone out of Dave’s hand, but that would require more movement than you’re willing to put in right now. 

“Yo, Egbert,” Dave greets after he’s let the ringtone run through at least three iterations. “Yeah, nah, that’s usually Tavros’s joint. I don’t know what the fuck’s up with him, either.” Dave pauses for John to talk, while onscreen Robin Williams flings a wad of what looks like fucking Play-Doh at a young Dante Basco’s face. “Nah. Nah, the medication makes him like a fucking kitten, like, more than ever. Most days, anyway.” Most of the food on the Lost Boys’ table looks bizarre and inedible, but strangely enough you’re pretty sure you’d slap your face in that shit and inhale given the chance. “A kitten with a fucking mouth on him, though.” 

The food fight just makes you kinda sad, like look at all this fuckin’ Play-Doh food and they’re just throwing it every which way. “That’s inappropriate, Egbert. Just because you’ve seen my dick doesn’t mean you’re privy to its doings anymore.” Robin Williams stands on the table covered in that shit, and wow you’ve never been attracted to Robin Williams before but you’re pretty sure you would lick that colorful shit right off him if you could. You don’t mean it sexually, really. “Shut the fuck up. No.” 

Maybe there’s a real world equivalent you can get and smear all over Dave. Then it’d be okay. Not that forty year old Robin Williams is entirely unattractive, especially in the fucking state you’re stuck in, but Dave is just the better specimen, you think. 

“How do you know he’s got no musical talent?” Your hand drops from Dave’s chest down to his waistband, fingers winding idly in the drawstrings of his pants. “Well nobody told you to sell it.” Onscreen Peter Banning’s kind of unfortunate-looking daughter is singing for all the world to hear because she’s lonely, which has always struck you as weird. 

“I know it’s a fucking piano, but I thought LA was made of, I don’t know, giant houses and condos.” Dave glances at your hand, and then up at you, but you’re not really doing anything so he lets it slide. “Why would I know shit about LA real estate?” Fuck, you’d love to live up in that motherfucking tree house. Look at that shit. It looks like a dream. All swinging in the night breeze and shit. “Don’t make me get crude at you.” You let your fingers drift a little further down, until you can feel Dave’s junk through his pajamas; when he ignores you, you figure maybe he just thinks you’re being absent-minded. So you just straight-up start palming him. 

“Now why you gotta judge me by how I acted when I was thirteen, man? I—” Dave inhales sharply, hips snapping back. “Nah, Gamzee’s just acting weird. Don’t worry about it.” He gives you a _look_ over his shoulder, but nothing else. “Well, maybe you would be too if you were on some weird government-enforced drug with a fucking ankle bracelet on.” You pause the movie on some non-distracting frame of Neverland’s horizon, hand pressing along Dave’s growing length, and he starts clearing his throat even as he kind of presses back. 

“Look, just let Karkat sell something. I’ll help, dude.” Your fingers curl around his clothed cock, making Dave hiss a little bit. “No, I mean like, financially. For the tickets. I didn’t mean help find Karkat sell—” You’re stroking him through the cotton, now, the line of buttons shifted to the side to keep things smooth. Dave clutches at your arm where it rests across his shoulder. “It’s kind of important, yeah.” When you spread the fly with your fingers, the cheap plastic buttons give way easily, and you can feel the warm soft skin of the underside of Dave’s cock. “I-I don’t know, a couple days?” 

You turn toward him, leaning down so you can bite at the crux of his neck and shoulder, and then curling around him to continue up the side of his throat, leaving little bloody nicks as you go. He tilts his chin up to make room for you, and you grin against him. Typical Dave. “Well I don’t fuckin’ know, you’d have to ask Karkles about it.” You stop messing around with his fly and just slip your hand beneath his waistband already—jesus, this thing is hot, in every sense, and you thumb over the drooling head appreciatively. Before, you know, letting go to drag your claws ever so lightly up the shaft. These things are delicate, you’ve been taught, and there’s only so caliginous you can act with them before things just take a turn for the worse. 

“I’ll call him whatever I want, and if he doesn’t like it—” Dave reaches out, and fumbles to open the coffee table’s drawer. You spot the little orange-capped bottle before he does, grab it and pop the cap. “—then he can suck my dick. Yeah, I’m fine, why the hell do you ask?” He lifts his hips for you and you push his pajama bottoms down under his ass. The lube gets poured along the length of his dick and Dave shivers, from the coldness of the substance and maybe too from you whispering into his unoccupied ear about the inadequacy of human anatomy if a sexual organ can’t lubricate itself. Dave mutters something about that not being sexy vocabulary, followed by, “No, man, Gamzee’s just tripping over the movie. Some sad shit.” 

With the lube your hand glides along his cock; you’re done teasing, pumping hard and fast. “I-it’s down low. Trolls, they got super hearing. Who the fuck knew, with those lizard—lizard ears—” He bites his lip as you bite into him, again. “Why the fuck would you think that? You’re sick. You’re fucking sick, Egbert, you and your little wife. Dishonor on you—dishonor on your c-cow—” This time he lets slip an honest-to-god moan, and there’s no disguising that. “Go check those fucking airline tickets, Egbert, I’m out.” He mashes his thumb against the screen until he hits End Call, and then hurls his phone into the opposite corner of the couch. 

He doesn’t say anything, instead just arching into fist as you stroke him, as you scratch up his chest and belly; he turns his head with his lips parted and you kiss him roughly, teeth clicking and grinding. It doesn’t take him much longer to come across his own stomach, and that’s when you stand up, letting his upper body drop abruptly. He whines at you that that’s no way to treat a lady, until you straddle his legs and lick the jizz (and blood) off his body. That shuts him up. 

Five minutes later he’s tired of the shallow breathing he’s reduced to when you lie on him like that, and he shoves at you until you get up. “Man, what the fuck! I was on the phone with John for the first time in like, ages.” He pulls his pants up in a few violent jerks over his raised hips, and busies himself re-buttoning the fly. 

“You didn’t mind,” you point out. “You liked that shit.” 

“Okay, yeah, true,” Dave concedes, “but just, fuck, Gamzee, haven’t you had enough? It’s all the fucking time with you now, I thought you would have been done with sex for a while after being in the district.” 

You freeze. 

“And just what the fuck is it you’re saying?” you ask, a low dangerous growl as you pin Dave by both shoulders to the couch cushions. 

“Shit, I mean—” He looks panicked underneath you. “I didn’t mean it like—”

“You’re fucking stupid, Dave,” you spit, baring your teeth. “I didn’t say shit about what happened in the district, for one. For two,” you add, digging in your claws, “it’s a fucking cycle. I thought you looked up your troll shit, you dumb sack of shit.” 

“A cycle?” His face looks like such an even blend of shock and disgust that it’s become neither, and you’re not sure exactly what’s going on with his physiognomy right now. “But we’ve been going out for—”

“Yeah, but I ain’t never been living with your ass before, have I?” You finally let him up, sitting back. “You make one more fucking assumption, _Strider,_ , I’ma gut you, and not in a sexy fucking way, you got me?” 

“Yeah, I _got_ you,” Dave grumbles as he sits up. “I hope you at least heard what I was _trying_ to talk to John about on the phone.” 

“I heard.” That wins him a lazy smile; to be honest, going aggro on the medication kind of hurts, like your blood changed direction in your veins or something, and you’re glad to calm back down. “I appreciate that shit, Dave.” 

He gives you a wary look in return, before giving you a snort and a smirk. “Alright, unpause the fucking movie, you drugged-up weirdo. Come on, I like this shit too.” 

Two days later you wake yourself up by punching a hole in the wall, feeling like your insides are both falling out and all in the wrong place at the same time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> seriously though STAY WITH ME GUYS i'm not here to freak you out i promise


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> i'm really sorry

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> edit: okay i thought adding tags was warning enough, but i was wrong, so i apologize for that! please just... mind the tags, HEAVILY. the gore and abortion tags are relevant.

When you hear something breaking in your bedroom you run like it’s for your life. What you find is Gamzee on the floor, eyes glazed and hyperventilating. He looks like utter shit, and there’s a hole in the wall the bed is pushed up against, little bits of paint and plaster rained down on your sheets. 

Shit, shit shit, Karkat didn’t even make it out here. Yet. If he’s able to come at all. 

You feel sick about doing this alone, but the way you figure it’s better that it’s just you two than him having to do this by himself. You drag him into an upright sitting position by the armpits, and then swing around to squat over his legs to give his shoulders a shake. “Come on, Gam, I got you. Get the fuck up.” His head lolls for a moment before he looks you in the eye, and he just really doesn’t look good. 

“I ‘on’t wanna do this,” Gamzee groans, but he’s struggling to get up anyway. You push and pull to help him up, hold him by the waist and elbow to support him as he staggers toward the bathroom. The tub is pretty much the only place to do it. 

“Where the fuck is Karkat?” he wants to know, but you don’t answer, just pull his shirt off. “I asked a fuckin’ question!” he slurs; you shake your head as you turn on both taps at full blast. You can’t look him in the eye for this one. 

“He couldn’t make it,” is all you can tell him, and then you brace yourself with a cringe for his reaction, eyes screwed shut. 

When you don’t hear anything, you open your eyes and find Gamzee kneeling on the floor, just slumped over the rim of the tub. You sigh and haul him up again so you can get his pants off, a pair of sweats he borrowed from you that don’t fit right and you don’t know why he wears them when they cut into his hips like that. He doesn’t help any, his whole bottom half twitching away from your fingers. You don’t blame him at all but they _have_ to come off. “Just take them off yourself,” you say, trying to not sound frustrated. He kicks them off into the corner, which of course throws him off balance and you’re forced to catch him before he cracks his head on something. 

“I hate,” he wheezes as you right him, “motherfucking _everything._ ” He takes that opportunity to start keeling over, groaning with what you can only guess is blinding pain, so you pull his side flush to yours so you can grab him by one knee and put that foot in the water. The tub is halfway full, but by the time you get all of him settled in the water—ankle bracelet still hanging out, which is not helping his position any—it’s brimming, threatening to slosh onto the floor every time he moves. You turn off the tap, and take off your own shirt in solidarity. (And also because you kind of like the shirt.) 

The water is already starting to tint purple, and you hope to fuck that’s not blood. Gamzee won’t stop whining through his teeth, and when you offer your forearm for him to clutch at he digs in deep until you’re gritting your teeth, too. “I want fuckin’ Karkat, I want Karkat here,” he keeps mumbling. 

“Karkat’s stuck in Los Angeles,” you remind him. He makes some kind of dying animal noise and splashes water at your face, which you try not to take too personally. “It costs a fuckload of money to be comin’ over here all the time—”

“Do I look like I give a shit, motherfucker?” Gamzee groans. After that little outburst though, he doesn’t have a lot of energy to devote to words. 

You look away, for the most part, when he starts going into labor. You get the feeling he doesn’t _want_ you to look. He’s still clutching your arm and it feels like you’re not going to have an arm _left_ after that, like he’s flaying it right down to the bone. Drops of your blood bloom on the surface of the bath water, and you bite the knuckles of your other hand to try and distract yourself from the bigger pain of your arm, and from Gamzee’s screaming. 

The only thing you can be grateful for is how fast it’s over. 

“Drain it,” Gamzee gasps, which is the only thing that prompts you to finally look past the rim of the tub again. When you just give him a dumbfounded look, he snaps, “Drain it, motherfucker, I know you ain’t deaf!” 

You reach with your good arm to flip the drain switch. The forearm Gamzee had been using for stress relief is shredded, blood painted in wide stripes all down it, although he at least managed to avoid digging into any major vessels. Flexing the hand attached to it stings. 

As the water disappears down the drain you help drag Gamzee out of the tub. He’s like a giant leaden ragdoll, and it takes you some maneuvering to avoid damaging the other contents of the tub. At the very least it looks like he’s not bleeding, which comes to you as a relief; as much as you like fucking him up in the ring, or scratching him up when you fuck, bleeding nooks are not your idea of a good time. You pull down a towel and drape it over Gamzee, who starts patting himself dry in slow motion. 

When you look in the tub, there are five round things clustered around the drain, kind of yellowish and leathery-looking. It kind of freaks you out, like a whole fucking lot, that these came out of Gamzee—it freaks you out even more to think that there’s actual life inside them, that Gamzee started out this way and now he’s bigger than you’ll ever be. You reach out and stroke one, which feels softer and drier than you expected. It startles you enough that you snatch your hand back. 

“So, what now?” you ask, turning back to look at a towel-swathed Gamzee. “Like, should I get some blankets for the little dudes, or what?” 

Gamzee won’t answer you, just turns his head away. “Look,” you say with a sigh, “I know this is not fun for you, and you don’t really wanna think about it, but you gotta—” 

“Smash ‘em,” he croaks, and at first you don’t even register what he said. 

“Wait, what? You can’t just—”

“I said we’re gonna smash the little shits,” Gamzee grunts, reaching for the sweatpants. You just stare at him as he wriggles into them. You’ve been able to tell in the past when he was kidding about otherwise serious shit, but now that ability is lost because no fucking _way_ can he be serious about this. “Gimme one, let’s do this.” 

“You can’t be for real about this,” you say with a nervous laugh. “I mean, these are like—” You pick one up gently, cradling it in both hands as you look down at it. “These’re like your fuckin’ kids, man.” 

“My kids?” The look Gamzee gives you is the first time you’ve been scared of him in a long time. You hug the egg to your chest protectively but it doesn’t matter, he snatches that shit out of your grasp with one giant hand and he holds it up like a piece of garbage. “My fuckin’ kids, Strider? No. No, no,” he says, shaking his head with a bitter laugh that makes you back up against the wall, “no. You wanna know what this is?” 

“An egg?” you answer carefully. Maybe ‘kid’ was taking it too far when it wasn’t hatched yet—

“It’s a fucking ticket back to the district!” he barks, snapping his wrist as he shakes it at you. You hear some kind of weird slopping noise inside the egg that makes you retch. “Grubs get raised in the district and they come down fucking _hard_ on trolls what can’t stick by them rules!” You can’t take your eyes off the egg in his hand, the sick feelings in you rising. 

“But you already, they already came outta you, we can’t just, give ‘em to the distri—”

“NO!” Gamzee bellows, and he raises the egg high over his head before he drives it into the floor. The shell is soft so it doesn’t even crack properly, just shreds like rotten fruit, and fuck, fuck, there’s blue fluids all over the floor now, reaching toward your toes that you pull up against your ass in an effort to get away from it. That blue isn’t Gamzee’s color and fuck, that would have been a blueblood troll, fuck—

Gamzee pulls his hand away from the mess, translucent blue fluid dripping from his fingers, and you can see something that looks like a flattened approximation of a skull. This time you do retch, barely make it to the toilet in time before everything comes up. When you come up, wiping your mouth against the back of your hand, Gamzee’s looking at you with twitching, furrowed brows, heavy-lidded and lower teeth bared. You nod. 

You drink water at the sink from your cupped hands, trying to ignore the mess on the floor, and then you kneel down by the sink again, picking up a second egg with shaking hands. Maybe once, maybe even a few times during this past week you imagined yourself a father, sort of, some kind of parent anyway, to creepy little fuzzy caterpillar babies with humanoid faces. Maybe you thought this would be something else you and Gamzee would do together, like maybe you would represent some kind of revolutionary bridge between the two races. 

You’re not revolutionary, though. You’re just Dave. He’s just Gamzee. 

You lick your lips, and you smash the egg. 

Purple fluids run into the drain, and you can’t even look at the results of what you’ve done, until you do and the shell has torn open to show you the broken half-formed body inside. It doesn’t even look like anything, it looks like a bunch of purple bubbles attached to a tiny cracked skull but it’s enough to make you dry heave again, your stomach too empty to vomit again. 

Gamzee joins you at the edge of the tub and he reaches past you to pick up the third egg. His lower lip is shaking and you don’t think you’ve ever seen this troll cry, but when he slams the egg into the bottom of the tub with both hands he does start crying, fat lavender tears rolling down his face and into the tub. This one is kind of spiny, looks like fish bones, probably would have been a seadweller. Gamzee isn’t sobbing so much as he’s just breathing way too hard, like a precursor to sobbing, and you rub his back with your bad arm, every twinge and sting worth it. 

You break the fourth one, another blueblood egg, stomach acid bubbling at the back of your throat. You swallow it back, and hold up the last one to Gamzee. He just holds it at first, looking at it like he’s never seen anything like it before and turning it over in his hands. 

And then he smashes it against the wall of the tub over and over again, until the shell is shredded all over the remains of the other eggs, until the purple fluid inside it splatters past his wrists, until the pseudo-grub inside is pulp around his fingers. “Fuck!” he screams, and he pounds his fist into the remnants of the other destroyed eggs, ugly hiccuping sobs making his body jump. “ _Fuck!_ ” You lean back and he just props himself up on the lip of the tub, pressing his indigo-smeared hand to his face as he cries. “Fuck, fuck, _fuck_ —” 

You drop a towel over the destroyed egg on the floor and push it to the side, and then you’re pulling Gamzee away from the tub, pulling him down with both arms so his face is half-pressed into your chest. Gamzee won’t stop cursing as he cries and you just run your hand down his back and your fingers through his hair, rocking him. As you shush at him, press really tender little kisses to his forehead, you remind yourself that this shit is reserved for moirails, that this is what Gamzee wants Karkat for, but fuck it. Karkat’s not here. You are.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> second edit: wrt some of the concern i've seen in the comments, [here's a bit of background on how the american gov't treats troll reproduction](http://nuclearstuck.tumblr.com/post/30859525363/regarding-troll-reproduction-and-legality-issues-in).


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the end, for now

The irony of everything is that it’s Dave who keeps waking up in the middle of the day, gasping and shaking. He never wants to fucking talk about it, of course, but he never turns you down when you just grab him by the waist and yank him up against your side. He doesn’t make you omelettes anymore, doesn’t even buy the shits in the cartons anymore. You miss omelettes.

When Karkat arrives he’s two days late, and he’s motherfucking distraught over it but you’re just happy to see him. He rushes into the apartment, ignores Dave and jumps on you so he can grab you by the face and check you over. 

“Nah, man, they didn’t come outta my face,” you say with a little snorting laugh. Karkat snorts too, but when you glance across the room Dave hasn’t taken the joke in stride and you pull an _oops_ face. Of course, Dave being Dave, he literally pulls a hand over his face to smooth it out and takes a confused-looking John into the kitchen. 

“I am going to punch that whimpering little shitstain you call a kismesis if he doesn’t stop cringing about things that don’t even affect him,” Karkat growls as he drapes himself all over you. He’s short and fat and it’s like having a balled up security blanket on your lap. 

“Hey now, palebro,” you say, putting a clumsy finger against his lips. “That’s my kismet fish you’re smash talking.” 

“Ugh, you even repeat his awful human jokes,” he groans. 

“And I ain’t think he ever seen shit like that, it was fucking wretched.” Personally, you don’t see the need to tell Dave most of the shit you’ve seen growing up in the district. 

“He’s wretched,” Karkat pouts. You just let your hands drop on his nubby horns to shake his head from side to side, which makes him gnash his teeth and makes you laugh. 

“For real, though, I ain’t never had it so good, so,” you tighten your hands on his horns, although there’s not much of a threat there, “don’t be fuckin’ this up for me. I’ve been with this motherfucker too long and through too many stupid-ass rescue missions, you got me?” 

Your moirail sighs. He’s your longest relationship, one of the first trolls you met online and your moirallegiance predates your 8th wriggling day, even if you didn’t get to meet in person until after he got together with John. You don’t think there’s a single being in this whole shithive universe who understands all your bullshit like Karkat does, even if Dave is really fucking trying for the position. “I guess he’s not such a jackass when he’s attached to you,” he concedes, running soothing fingers through your hair. “And his apartment has enough room for your incredibly excessive fucking horns.” 

You’re like that for a good twenty minutes before Dave stalks out of the kitchen, scowling as he plonks his ass on the couch next to you. It’s feeling a little fucking crowded all of a sudden. John at least doesn’t join the couch party when he appears, but he looks about as happy as Dave does. 

“Nah, come on,” Dave says as he sweeps one arm out palm-up, before tucking it into his elbow to cross his arms. “I appreciate your honesty, I bet Gamzee would too.” You look up at John expectantly, which makes him take a step back. 

“Dave, stop, I didn’t mean it like that,” John sighs. “Stop blowing things out of proportion.” 

“Just tell Gamzee, then, if you didn’t mean it like that.” Karkat slides off your lap to sit next to you, looking at his matesprit with a frown. 

What happens is that John doesn’t actually get to talk, although he does open his mouth to give it a shot. Karkat is up before he can even say _Uh_ , hand slipping into John’s to pull him toward the door. You think you hear something about going for a walk, and then they’re out the door. 

“John’s got a lot of shit to say,” Dave mutters when you look at him. “Maybe he should quit biology and go into a goddamn career as a shrink, he thinks he’s so fuckin’ smart.” 

“What’d he got to say?” You pull Dave close, your one arm pinning both of his so he flaps his hands in irritation. 

“I dunno, some creepy shit about you and Bro. He still won’t believe me when I say I like how things are, and keeps trying to tell me some shit about how ‘unhealthy’ he thinks this relationship is.” He breaks free of your grasp, gets up and kind of splats his face against the wall before he goes to the stereo set and puts on what you recognize as John Legend. Now you _know_ he’s upset; he only ever touches that thing to put on that one album, otherwise always just uses his computer or his rig in the corner if he’s feeling fancy. 

He’s fucking swaying to the song, some weird slow preachy shit about Jesus and holiness; when you go up behind him and pull him around, he’s making what he calls his Popeye face, both lips sucked into his face at the epicenter of the hardest frown. You made fun of him for this song once, but the particular way he punched you just once and then locked himself in his bedroom taught you it was a sore subject. You can understand, maybe, being attached to a religion you don’t believe for shit, and you just learned to leave him alone, at least back then. Now you put an arm around his waist, thread the fingers of your other hand with his, and the little shit takes his cue to step up onto the tops of your feet. 

“You’re so fucking corny,” Dave snorts, but he puts his face against your chest nonetheless. “Maybe I oughta listen to John and settle down with Tavros before you infect me with any more of your corniness.” You start just taking slow, lurching steps around the room with Dave still standing on your feet; you saw this shit in a human movie once, and you don’t understand it really but it works pretty well on Dave when he’s feeling fucked up. 

“Nah, you’re stuck with me, motherfucker.” You list from side to side, and supposedly this is dancing. _Wholy, holy._ You can feel the Popeye face melting away. “Been more than half a sweep.” 

“Nobody says sweeps but you,” he replies, “and some old farts from your hometown.” He just sighs it out, can’t even make it a proper retort. 

“Dave.”

“Mmm.”

“You told John you like how things are?” _Wholy, holy, holy..._

“Yeah. And I’m gonna punch him in the face if he tries to convince me I don’t know my own damn thoughts.” You can feel his arm relaxing around your waist. 

“And...” You lick your lips. “You’re happy like this?” 

“Yo, are you fucking deaf? You don’t remember what I said that made you freak out in the first place and get all catalystic on our shit?” The song changes, something a little more upbeat with a lot of pipe organ going on. 

“Nah, you gonna have to remind my stupid stoner ass,” you say, grinning. You let your hips sway, too, taking Dave’s with them. 

“I don’t even know what I’d do without your sorry ass, is what I said, and what I still do say,” he says, gathering the fabric of your t-shirt into his fist at the small of your back. “I love you about as much as I hate you, man.” 

“Is that a fact.” 

“Yeah, you giant pain in my ass.” He tugs on the hair at the back of your neck, and you crane down to let him kiss you. 

“I guess I feel about the same shit when it comes to you,” you say with a grin when he breaks off. “Pain in my ass motherfucker.” 

“Oh, like you’re not gonna say it.” He gives you a push, jumping off your feet with a sly grin. “Don’t even play.” 

“I hate you so goddamn much, David Panini Strider, that I think I went all the way around and even fucking love you, too.” 

“That’s not my fucking name and you know it!” He doesn’t jump so much as he _leaps_ , hands out like claws to plunge you both into the depths of the mess of pillows on the couch. 

You wrestle for a while until you throw him off and he clonks his head on the edge of the coffee table, which has him pouting and whining for a solid half hour before you remind him that the two of you got prior engagements. Then it’s like the headache vanishes, fucking poof magic, and he’s off to hog the bathroom. 

Tavros is coming over in a little bit, so the three of you can talk about how to make shit work between you all—or really, so the two of you can confuse the shit out of Dave and maybe make him think that a fifth secret quadrant is a real, actual thing and that he better feel special just for finding out about it. Just the thought makes you smirk. On the real, though, Dave thinks he can serve as some kind of red auspicetice between the two of you, so that maybe when Tav looks at you he sees how fucking flushed you are for him, instead of the young dumb highblood you used to be. (You mean, coolblood.) Dave’s probably overestimating himself, but you give him credit for trying. 

The thing you got told since you were fucking hatched is that you were too good for all this shit, too good for humans and their nonsense, but fuck. You’re pretty sure Dave Strider, human nonsense and all, is the best goddamn thing that ever happened to you. 

“Oh, you fuck, you hid my fucking shampoo in the toilet tank again, didn’t you!” 

Yeah, this is the good shit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay, so this is the end of gamzee and dave's story, but not of nukestuck! you didn't forget about fef and rose, did you? not to mention plans to visit the west coast and see how john and karkat met. :D 
> 
> as for the [nukestuck blog](http://nuclearstuck.tumblr.com/), it's still updating with worldbuilding asks and fanart, so you should check it out! there's plenty of stuff that probably won't ever be covered in actual fics, as well as rp logs between myself and mulattafury that fill in some more of dave's history with dating trolls. (i was originally going to edit them and upload them to ao3 as actual fics, but... ehh, i'd rather write more proper fic!)
> 
> so, yeah, i hope you enjoyed the gamdave ride, and never fear, they're not going AWAY or anything. stay tuned for more nuclearstuck!


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